Gossamer by Lois Lowry

Oh! A sweet enchanting book that will enthrall the young and the not-so-young-but-still-loving-books-for-the-young like me. Although I wonder if I had read this book as a kid, would I have appreciated the little ways that Lowry has with her characters? I’m not sure.

This short book, just 144 pages, tells of dreams and nightmares and its givers. Littlest is an apprentice dream-giver. What is she?, she wonders, not a human, not an animal. She learns from the more senior one, learning to touch objects around her person’s house, gathering the fragments, the memories that are imbued into these items, and bestowing these dreams onto the woman.

The woman – elderly, dog-lover, childless – begins to foster an abused boy who has uneasy dreams, whose presence in the house attracts those who give nightmares, the Sinisteed. Littlest and her teacher must help him and his caregiver overcome these nightmares, face their past and figure out what they mean to each other.

Gossamer is a whimsical little story, a tale full of heart, one that treads between fantasy and reality.

I read it while my own littler boy slept in the stroller, unwilling to nap in the bed that afternoon, crying and crying until I gave up and picked him up. It was a cold afternoon, the light was fading, and I seemed to be the only one walking around the estate that day. Kindle in gloved hand, I pushed the stroller around and around as he slept and dreamt on.